face.”
“That
doesn’t mean you haven’t imagined it, or that you can’t be infatuated with
him.”
She
tensed. Patrick had hit a bit too close to home. Yes, she had times when she
fantasized about Zero. His inner strength and resolve spoke to her, reaching
out through his layers of protective insulation to touch her like no one else
she had ever known. And his air of remove that proclaimed him beyond her reach
only heightened the attraction.
Fearing
her expression might give something away, she stepped
off the curb and waved at an approaching taxi.
“You’re
talking crazy.”
10
You’ve
got to love modern technology, Luca Portero thought,
smiling as he spotted Ellis Sinclair’s silver Lexus SUV half a dozen car
lengths ahead on the George Washington Bridge .
Luca
had equipped the Lexus with a transponder that let him know its location no
matter where it went. He glanced at the locator screen, glowing in the dark on
the passenger seat. Luca’s car was a fixed dot in the center of the green LCD
monitor; the Lexus was a blip floating directly above it. A GPS program laid
out a map of the city around them, showing both cars crossing the Hudson River toward the city.
All
was well.
Well? he thought. Who am I kidding?
He
shook his head. He’d almost forgotten what well meant. Nothing was anywhere
near well .
Darryl
Lister had become a raw, twitching nerve after he learned of the fateful
question at the stockholders’ meeting, a nonstop question box: Who asked it?
How could he know?
Well,
Luca had soon found out that it wasn’t a ‘he’ at all. The meeting had been
recorded—a matter of routine—and who did he spot while
reviewing the video files: Cadman. Romy fucking Cadman.
Initially
Lister had been sure that Palmer had talked under his own Totuus ,
but then they’d tracked the operative to some Long Island hospital where he was spending his days
sitting around babbling gibberish. Obviously the MTW had worked.
Luca
shuddered at the thought of such a fate, even if the effect only lasted for
ninety days. Ninety days of hell. If you weren’t loony before, you damn sure
might be after.
But
the success of the MTW had sent Luca back to the leak problem.
He
already knew it was Ellis Sinclair. But who was he was leaking to? That was
what mattered. Tonight Luca would find out. Once he learned Sinclair’s contact,
the rest would fall into place. Then he’d make his move. And take no prisoners.
He
followed Sinclair down the West Side Highway to Fifty-fourth Street , crawled across Midtown—traffic in the city
would be murder until after Christmas—to a parking garage across the street
from the Warwick Hotel. Shit! He couldn’t very well pull in right behind him.
He should have brought backup.
He
left the car double-parked and running while he trotted to the ramp that led
down to the parking area. Crouching, he spotted Sinclair accepting a ticket
from the attendant. But instead of walking back this way, he started up the
ramp on the other side.
Fuck!
He was heading out to Fifty-third!
Luca
ducked back into his car. He folded up the locator unit and grabbed the keys.
As he slammed and locked the door he heard a voice behind him.
“Can’t leave that here.”
He
turned to see an NYPD uniform. Black, big face, big gut
stretching his blue shirt, big black belt laden with police paraphernalia.
“Officer,
this is an emergency.”